Wisler's gem pushes Storm to win over High Desert

LAKE ELSINORE  Tuesday night was another night at the office for Storm ace Matthew Wisler.

Wisler continued his mastery of the California League by hurling six shutout innings of two-hit ball in the Storm's 7-3 win over High Desert at The Diamond.

The fine outing lowered Wisler's ERA to a league-best 1.04.

Wisler was so efficient, with only 62 pitches through five innings, that he pitched through the sixth for the very first time this season. He finished with 75 pitches, 54 for strikes.

Wisler did not walk a batter for the second time this season while registering a modest total of strikeouts by his standards ---- four.

"He is not afraid to go out there and go ---- here it is, you hit it," Storm manager Shawn Wooten said. "This is my best stuff. That goes a long way. The competitiveness of it all. There's a lot of guys in this game that have good stuff, but they pitch around contact."

Wisler generated nine of his total 14 outs in play via the groundball.

"He's got some good sink when he throws his two-seamer," said Storm catcher Austin Hedges of Wisler's contrasting styles between power and finesse. "He can pump up, get to 95-96 with his four-seam too."

Seven of Wisler's pitches missed the Mavericks' bats completely, including an 83-mph slider that fanned High Desert's Chris Taylor for the third out in sixth inning.

But for the most part, Wisler was able to breeze through the Mavericks' lineup by using only two of his four pitches ---- his fastball and slider.

"I threw one curveball tonight," Wisler said. "I actually didn't throw any changeups because they only had a couple lefties."

Squirrel race goes national

In its second year, the squirrel race has become a popular sideshow between innings at Storm games.

Eric Theiss, who works in group sales for the Storm, dons a squirrel outfit and races a random fan from the right field line to left field line. Theiss, a former 400-meter sprinter at SUNY-Oneonta ---- a state university in New York ---- allows the fan to get a sizeable lead before he even starts running. Theiss eventually catches up and wins handily. He's only lost once in two years.

Members of the Padres front office witnessed the races during trips to The Diamond and invited Theiss to perform the same squirrel race at PETCO Park last Saturday.

The squirrel race at PETCO was so amusing that it was shown on ESPN's Sportscenter that night and a YouTube video of it had drawn over 100,000 views by Tuesday morning.

"I'm from New York so I know it's kind of made its way back home," Theiss said. "A lot of friends have been texting me. For the most part, it's been a surreal thing. I try to stay humble about it."

The story doesn't stop there as the Padres overcame a 5-0 deficit versus San Francisco with a six-run outburst in the bottom of the fourth inning after Theiss ran.